A man of more imperious nature than Pius might, by straining his prerogatives, have produced an irreconcilable rupture. But he was aware that the very existence of the Papacy depended on circumspection. He therefore used all his advantages with caution, and resolved to win the day by diplomacy. With this object in view he introduced the further system of negotiating with the Catholic Courts through special agents. Instead of framing the decrees upon the information furnished by his Legates, he in his turn submitted them to Philip, Catherine de'Medici, and Ferdinand, agreed on terms of mutual concession, persuaded the princes that their interests were identical with his own, and then returned such measures to the Council as could be safely passed. In course of time the Holy Ghost was not packed up at Rome for Trent in carpet-bags before he had gone round of Europe and made his bow in all cabinets. It must not, however, be thought that matters went smoothly for the Pope at first, or that so novel a method as that which I have described, whereby the faith and discipline of Christendom were settled by negotiations between sovereigns, came suddenly into existence. In its first sessions the Council, to quote the Pope's own words, resembled the Tower of Babel rather than a Synod of Fathers. The Spanish prelates contended fiercely for two principles touching the episcopacy: one was that the residence of bishops in their dioceses had been divinely commanded; the other, that their authority is derived from Christ immediately. The first struck at the Pope's power to dispense from the duty of residence; and if it had been established, it would have ruined his capital. The second would have rendered the episcopacy independent of Rome, and have made the Holy Father one of a numerous oligarchy instead of the absolute chief of a hierarchy. Pius was able to show Philip that the independence of the bishops must inflict deep injuries on the crown of Spain. Philip therefore wrote to forbid insistance on this point. But the Spanish prelates, though coerced, were not silenced, and the storm which they had raised went grumbling on.